It turns out there is a solution to the packs of loitering youths that have vexed small communities and riled shopkeepers since the existence of teenagers and towns.
But it doesn’t require dollars for a new skateboard park or a youth outreach centre. The solution, apparently, is starting a co-operative.
Two years ago, Matt Ford and his friends in Baie Verte, a mining town on the north coast of Newfoundland, formed the first youth co-op in their province. Thanks in part to their membership in the co-operative, the young adults have gone from smoking cigarettes on the sidewalk, to building a new playground and organizing dances for seniors in the community of 1,200.
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“It’s a group that formed out of boredom, basically. Nothing to do and being driven (away) from business to business,” said Ford, president of the Advocate Youth Services Co-operative, which has 25 members.
Ford, 21, was in Winnipeg June 25-27 for the Canadian Co-operative Association’s (CCA) annual meeting. During a break between sessions, Ford explained the history and goals of Baie Verte’s youth co-op.
In his teens, Ford and his friends liked to hang around the town’s Co-op grocery store.
Their location to loiter didn’t provoke conflict, however, because the store manager, Larry Higdon, decided to engage the teens rather than drive them away.
Over time, a friendship developed between the manager and the youths, with the teens frequently asking questions about the Co-op.
That curiousity, and need for something to do, sparked an idea that evolved into the Advocate Youth Services Co-operative.
The young co-op members, Ford said, have built themselves a gazebo to hang out in, they help out the Kinsmen with fundraisers and will do anything that benefits Baie Verte.
“Basically what we’re trying to do is provide youth with something to do. Build the community socially and the infrastructure,” said Ford, who sports a black baseball cap and faint mustache, and looks like mischief lingering outside a convenience store.
Despite his look, Ford speaks with passion about the potential of youth co-ops to change lives. Including his.
“Before I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, and now I know I want to get involved in co-operatives,” said Ford, who intends to study business management this fall at the College of the North Atlantic in Newfoundland.
While in Winnipeg, Ford participated in the CCA’s first youth forum – an initiative to inspire young people already working at co-operatives. The forum was modelled after the youth forums held by the CCC, the co-operative association in Quebec.
“To give a voice to young co-operators,” said Barbara Daris, past-president of the youth delegation at the CCC, explaining the mandate of the youth forum.
Daris and other CCC members also held their youth forum in Winnipeg, as part of the first joint conference between the Quebec and Canadian co-op associations.
Marco Plourde, the president of the CCC’s youth delegation, said part of their role is to raise young people’s awareness of the co-op movement.
“In schools or universities, you don’t see it anymore …. You might see a paragraph (in a textbook),” he said.
Having learned from hands-on experience, Ford is convinced that getting youth involved in co-ops is beneficial to teens, the community and the co-operative’s bottom line.
“Parents do what their kids want them to do,” he said. “With the co-op being really involved in the youth (in Baie Verte), the youth said ‘the co-op is cool.’ “
